a.d. VII Kal. Iun.
May 26 in Ancient Rome
Germanicus celebrates his triumph over the Germans
A triumph for an unfinished war
politicsAD 17
Julian date · ≈ May 24 on our calendar
Germanicus paraded through Rome in triumph for his campaigns beyond the Rhine, with spoils, captives and his five children riding in his chariot.
Background
In AD 9 three Roman legions under Varus had been destroyed in the forests of Germany. Germanicus, Tiberius' nephew and adopted son, spent the years 14–16 campaigning beyond the Rhine to avenge them. Tiberius then recalled him before he could finish, and Tacitus says the war, "seeing that he had been forbidden to finish it, was taken as finished".
The triumph was a spectacle for the whole city. Tacitus lists what passed through the streets: spoils and prisoners, and painted or modelled representations of the mountains, rivers and battles of Germany, so that Romans who would never cross the Rhine could see the war. The crowd admired the handsome general and his chariot carrying his five children. In the same passage Tacitus mentions an arch near the temple of Saturn marking the recovery of the standards lost with Varus.
Yet Tacitus adds a shadow per Tacitus. Watchers felt "a latent dread", remembering how Germanicus' father Drusus and his uncle Marcellus had been loved by the people and died young; the favour of the Roman people, they said, was short-lived and ill-starred. Two years later Germanicus died in Syria, and many Romans suspected poison.
Ancient source: Tacitus, Annals 2.41 · Reference
Sources
☁ Rome today (1991–2020 avg): 24°/14°C (75°/57°F) · rain 22% of days
Rome in MayLate spring was a time of hard field labour and fresh food: beans, greens and…
Columella
North winds. (De Re Rust. 11.2)
Fields & crops
Hay was cut, barley harvested in warm places, beans threshed, and vines and young crops weeded and hoed per Columella 11.2. Sheep were washed and sheared.
Courts & law
A busy legal season. Romans avoided marrying in May, which was considered unlucky, especially before the Ides per Ovid, Fasti 5.490.
Senate & politics
Senate and assemblies met normally. The temple of Mercury, dedicated on the Ides of May, was the seat of an early guild of merchants per Livy 2.27; on that day traders sprinkled their goods with water from his spring to wash away the month's lies per Ovid, Fasti 5.663–92.
Military
Full campaigning season: armies marched and supply convoys used good roads and calm seas.
Festivals & religion
Floralia ended on 3 May; the Lemuria (9, 11, 13 May) drove ghosts from the house at midnight with black beans; the Argei, rush puppets, were thrown into the Tiber on 14 or 15 May per Ovid, Fasti 5.
Daily life
Late spring was a time of hard field labour and fresh food: beans, greens and the first barley. Enslaved farm workers, often chained in the ergastulum on large estates, did the heaviest work per Columella 1.6–8, who advises on their supervision. In the city, the Floralia's games included mimes and, by tradition, performers who undressed at the crowd's demand per Valerius Maximus and Lactantius; hostile or late sources. Childbirth was a major risk for women at any season; inscriptions record many deaths of young mothers per surviving epitaphs.
Sources: Ovid, Fasti 5 · Columella 1 and 11.2
All days in May →
LATIN LINE OF THE DAY
Non est vivere, sed valere vita est.
“Life is not just being alive, but being well.”
Martial, Epigrams 6.70 · translation ours (literal)
